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'Domestic extremism' police called in on climate hack

Animal rights nut squad lends a hand

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Norfolk police investigating the "Climategate" hack have called in colleagues from the National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET), it has emerged.

The unit was originally set up to investigate animal rights extremists. Recently it has been embroiled in controversy over police gathering intelligence about protestors, including environmentalists.

NDET, run by ACPO, is providing the investigation with two officers and computer forensics expertise.

"Whilst it is not strictly domestic extremism, we have expertise and resources to assist with this investigation as well as a good background in climate change issues in relation to criminal investigations," a spokeswoman told The Mirror.

The Information Commissioner's Office is also involved in the probe.

Hackers stole and published thousands of emails and other data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November.

At the beginning of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that the raid was the work of Russian hackers, hired to derail talks to cut carbon emissions.

The stolen files sparked a fierce debate over the veracity of CRU's work on global warming, which forced its lead scientist Professor Phil Jones to temporarily stand aside. A review of CRU's research is ongoing. ®